Always learning… {Day 18}

Happy Back to School, friends! 🌻

I’m usually deep diving into some topic I’m currently interested in. As a stay-at-home-homeschooling-mom, it’s important for me to be learning, too! That’s what I love about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education. All of us involved are learning to live, be curious, and prioritize relationships with God, people current and past, the natural world, and so much more. My current interest is communism and the different countries and people involved in it.

Bookstagram/Booktube have a month long focus called #RedSeptember, but I’m just going as my interest leads. I have one book on hold at the library related to North Korea (is North Korea really Communist? There’s some debate on that?). I read a lot this past year about Vietnam and a couple chapters on Laos. I’m currently reading The Faithful Spy by John Hendrix because my older children had liked it. Wow! 😮 it’s intense but I love the illustration style. I listened to a memoir called Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang and learned so much of the Chinese cultural revolution.

I also listened to Animal Farm by George Orwell which was fascinating and a bit unnerving about how quickly we believe propaganda. The character Boxer! 😭 Such a sobering story and fascinating way of explaining! I was able to chat a little with my older who has read it before.

I do have an interesting book I found on my public library shelves called Eight Pieces of Empire: A 20-Year Journey Through the Soviet Collapse by Lawrence Scott Sheets. It is the memoir of a journalist traveling through a few of the various countries that were part of the Soviet Union. So far it’s good!

I also have the historical fiction A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles sitting here and a children’s graphic novel called Escape from East Berlin. So plenty of options! Do you have any recommendations that would give me some knowledge on Cuba? Or any favorite books on communist history? What are you currently deep, dive studying? I have plenty more of interests, but this is my focus now! ♥️📚

Monday Ponderings {Day 17}

Fly little butterfly. 🖤🧡🖤🧡🖤🧡

Monarchs are “tough and powerful, as butterflies go.” They fly over Lake Superior without resting; in fact, observers there discovered a curious thing, instead of flying directly south, monarchs crossing high over the water take an inexplicable turn towards the east. Then when they reach an invisible point, they all veer south again. Each successive swarm repeats this mysterious dogleg movement, year after year. Entomologists actually think that the butterflies might be “remembering” a long-gone, looming glacier.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p.258

{God’s creation astounds me! It inspires and encourages me. Happy Back to School week and Happy September! }📝🖤📚📓🌿🌻🐈

•faithful• {Day 16}

But I will sing of your strength

and will joyfully proclaim

your faithful love in the morning.

For you have been a stronghold for me,

a refuge in my day of trouble.

To you, my strength, I sing praises,

because God is my stronghold ~

my faithful God.

Psalm 59:16-17 CSB

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